I know some of you guys live around the Beltway, and others are journos of various stripes, so this announcement from the Army’s PAO is relevant:
Members of the media are invited to attend the Army’s 250th birthday week-long celebration from June 7-14, 2025. This year’s birthday theme, “This we’ll defend,” was first used as a battle cry by the Continental Army. Today, it reminds us that our Army’s purpose is clear: to fight and win the nation’s wars. We remain committed to honing our warfighting skills, enforcing standards and discipline, and living the values that have defined our Army for the past 250 years.
June 7
On June 7, a new exhibit at the National Museum of the United States Army called “Call to Arms: The Soldier and the Revolutionary War” will be open and free to the public. The museum is open daily from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. There will be rare Revolutionary War artifacts from the original colonies, England, France, and Canada on display. Opening weekend activities from June 7 to 8 include special, family-friendly, Revolutionary War-themed events such as powder horn carving demonstrations, uniform and equipment displays, and story times. The Revolutionary War 250 special exhibit and companion educational programming are included in the museum’s free admission and will be offered through June 2027.
On June 11, the Twilight Tattoo hosted by Lt. Gen. Robert Harter, chief of the Army Reserve and commanding general of U.S. Army Reserve Command, will start a pre-show at 6:30 p.m. and a show at 7 p.m. at Summerall Field at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, Virginia. The action-packed military experience will feature Soldiers from the U.S. Army Military District of Washington’s ceremonial units. It will also be livestreamed on @USArmy social media platforms. To learn more, please visit the website at https://jtfncr.mdw.army.mil/twilighttattoo/. Media interested in attending or would like more information, please reach out to usarmy.mcnair.mdw.mbx.mediadesk-omb@army.mil.
June 13
The Army birthday run (or walk) will start at 7 a.m. at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall. Media interested in broadcasting live at the start of the run, please reach out to Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall Director of Public Affairs Jason Shepherd, jason.shepherd8.civ@army.mil.
Army Day with the Washington Nationals will begin at 6:45 p.m. Army leaders and personnel will hold their annual Army-focused celebration as the Washington Nationals play the Miami Marlins. Media interested in attending or would like more information, please reach out to Nationals’ Director of Communications Erica George at erica.george@nationals.com.
June 14
The Army Birthday Wreath Laying at Arlington National Cemetery will take place at 8:15 a.m. Media interested in attending or would like more information, please reach out to usarmy.mcnair.mdw.mbx.mediadesk-omb@army.mil.
The Army Fitness event will be held at 9:30 a.m., and the Army Birthday Festival will begin at 11 a.m. at the National Mall, Washington, D.C. The festival will provide opportunities to interact with Soldiers, Army Astronauts, NFL representatives, es and Medal of Honor recipients, and to watch military demonstrations, explore equipment displays, participate in a cake cutting ceremony, and take part in a variety of activities at 6:30 p.m. the Army Birthday Parade will celebrate the Army’s history and will feature Army equipment, flyovers, and 6,600 Soldiers in uniforms from the past and the present. The parade’s best viewing area will be south of Constitution Avenue. The day will end with an enlistment and re-enlistment ceremony, a parachute demonstration by the Golden Knights, and a fireworks display.
Live music will be featured throughout the day.
To register to attend the free festival and parade, click here.
Members of the media who would like to attend should RSVP by 12 p.m., June 10. There will be a designated media riser for a limited number of credentialed outlets. Members of the media should click here to register.
To learn more about the Army’s 250th birthday, visit:
It happened 80 years ago this week. Wesermünde (Bremerhaven), Germany. 11 June 1945.
Official caption: “Two members of the USN security guard aboard [redacted] inspect the surrounding harbor together with two members of the party directing the re-fitting.”
Photographer: Pvt. Gedge, 3908 Bremen. SC 364338 Photo Source: U.S. National Archives. Digitized by Signal Corps Archive.
(L-R) Leslie Graber, Momm 2/CL, Canton, Ohio; Jack Beach, MM 1/CL, Flint, Mich.; Grover Bradford, MM3 3/CL, Newman, Ill., and Ollin Donohue, Momm 1/CL, Wichita Falls, Tex.
The men are likely on the seized 49,000-ton Norddeutsche Lloyd liner SS Europa, which survived the war largely intact. Commissioned as USS Europa (AP-177), she was used as a U.S. Navy troop transport until May 1946, when she was handed over to France in compensation for the loss of the SS Normandie during the war, and became the CGT liner SS Liberté.
The dazzle-camouflaged German passenger liner, SS Europa, moves out of drydock at Bremerhaven, Germany, 18 July 1945, while being reactivated. She soon became USS Europa (AP-177) and made two Southampton to New York troop-carrying voyages under U.S. control. Note U-boat hull sections on shore at left. SC 209687
As agreed by the Allied governments in February 1945, immediately following the German surrender in May 1945, the U.S. Navy assumed command of and took part in mine-clearing operations at the wrecked ports of Bremen and Wesermünde (now Bremerhaven) to clear the vital harbors for use. As such, the USAAF and RAF leveled 79 percent of the surrounding town but spared most of the port infrastructure itself.
Sending in roadborne recon teams on 29 May, the “Bremen Enclave,” under RADM Arthur Granville Robinson (USNA 1913), remained under U.S. Navy control through June 1946 before they were turned over to local authorities, albeit with American oversight. The Army sent in the 487th Port Bn and the 330th Harbor Craft Co for support, and it soon became the major German port complex used to support the Western Allies’ occupation. The curious part of this was that this USN-run enclave was inside the British zone of occupation.
U.S. Navy in Germany, 1945. Members of the U.S. Navy advance reconnaissance patrol keep a wary eye out for Nazi snipers as they rumble through the debris-lined streets of Bremen, en-route to the dock area. Photograph release May 29, 1945. Official U.S. Navy photograph, now in the collections of the U.S. Navy. 80-G-49286
Note the extensive presence of side arms and knives. U.S. Navy in Germany, 1945. Transported 400 miles across Europe by the U.S. Army, a force of Naval Officers and men took over the administration of the port activities of Bremen, Germany. Damaged but readily repairable facilities are inspected by the command staff of the U.S. Navy. Captain V.H. Coufrey points out salient features of Europe Hafen Docks to Rear Admiral Arthur G. Robinson. Photograph released May 29, 1945. Official U.S. Navy photograph, now in the collections of the U.S. Navy. 80-G-49281
The first American ships to unload in the harbor, post-war, were the freighters SS St. Thomas and SS Black Warrior on 22 June, with 22,000 tons of cargo discharged at the port by the end of the month.
The California Highway Patrol recently posted images of a rifle recovered from a stolen vehicle that looks like it should come with some Nuka Cola and a radiation detector.
The gun, which is an AK variant that seems to have one point been a commercial Romanian WASR, has seen better days and is lacking its top dust cover, sports a “cheese grater” upper handguard, and is upgraded with electrical tape on the grip. The lower handguard has been castrated. The finish can best be described as…nah.
Take a gander:
For those curious, CHP says the Kalsh was left behind in the driver’s side floorboard after said driver beat feet just after they crashed into four vehicles on I-80 in Oakland while apparently trying to avoid a stop by troopers. The car, a gray Nissan Ultima with no plates, was stolen. A 14-year-old passenger was left behind as well.
“Both the firearm and the vehicle were subsequently recovered, and the incident remains under investigation,” says CHP.
As for the AK, the over 150 comments on CHP’s social media post concerning it were gold. Here is a sampling for your enjoyment or outrage (whatever, it’s a free country), left as-is:
Who wrecked the Somali Pirates?
Dudes out here tryina be the captain now.
Blackhawk Down + Nissan Altima = that “gun”
bro livin in fallout
That K looks like it’s spawned from Fallout.
got more body’s then Hillary Clinton
Looks like he got that AK magnet fishing.
@Brandon Herrera look at how they massacred your boy
Here we see the Kaiser-built Casablanca-class escort carrier USS Windham Bay (CVE-92) looking worse for wear in Guam in June 1945 after a brush with the same typhoon off Okinawa that Indiana was shown inside yesterday.
“Taken at Guam about 11th of June, 1945, after going through typhoon of off Okinawa, June 5th 1945” Bruce A. Blegen Collection Photo # UA 460.16.01 via NHHC.
On 4-5 June 1945, while steaming with the logistics group in support of TF 38 and the strikes on Okinawa, Windham Bay encountered a typhoon. The heavy storm damage included the collapse of 20 feet of flight deck onto the foc’sle, a warped and ruptured catapult, as well as lost and damaged planes. On 16 June, she cleared the Marianas en route to Oahu. The warship reached Pearl Harbor on the 25th but departed again two days later. She entered port at San Diego on 11 July and immediately began repairs to correct the typhoon damage she had suffered earlier in the month. Those repairs lasted through late August, so that she missed the final weeks of the war.
Still, she earned three battle stars for her yeoman service in hauling Marine and Navy carrier aircraft (as many as 76 at a time) and squadrons across the Pacific for 12 solid months between June 1944 and June 1945.
Post-war, she conducted “Magic Carpet” rides bringing troops home from overseas and was placed in the Reserve Fleet out of commission on 23 August 1946.
When Korea broke out in 1950, she was dusted off for assignment to the Military Sea Transportation Service and, with a civil crew, served as an aircraft ferry (T-CVE-92, later T-CVU-92) for the next eight years shelping tactical aircraft to Japan from the West Coast along with loads of F8F Bearcats to the French in Indochina.
USS Windham Bay (T-CVU-92) passes under the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco, California, with a cargo of aircraft on her flight deck, 1958. Planes visible are mainly U.S. Air Force F-86D fighters, with a few U.S. Navy F9F and F2H fighters parked near and forward of the ship’s island. Courtesy of Robert M. Cieri, 1982. NH 94307
Decommissioned in January 1959, she was sold to the Hugo Neu Steel Products Corp and scrapped, ironically, in Japan in February 1961.
U.S. Marines with Marine All Weather Fighter Attack Squadron (VMFA(AW)) 533 transport an AIM-9X Sidewinder missile at Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni, Japan, Sept. 28, 2022. (U.S. Marine Corps photo by Cpl. Gabriel Durand)
First fired successfully in September 1953 (!) and bagged its first confirmed aerial kills in 1958, the AIM-9 Sidewinder is still very much in demand and on front-line service in its 70s.
Of course, the current fifth-generation infra-red AIM-9X tactical weapon system family, which debuted in 2004 and has delivered well over 10,000 examples, is not your grandfather’s Sidewinder.
Unlike previous AIM-9 models, the AIM-9X can even be used against ground targets and has Lock-On-After-Launch and Data Link capabilities. Little wonder that it is used by 29 countries.
With that in mind, it should be no surprise that the DOD just announced a $1.1B contract for right at 2,000 war-shot and around 200 training missiles for both U.S. and overseas customers. This points to a cost of about $500K per round, which is a bargain compared to a $1.3 million longer-range AIM-132 AMRAAM.
As Sidewinders have proved useful against incoming Iranian and Houthi missiles in the Middle East in the past couple of years, a lot of these new purchases are likely to backfill for expended rounds.
Plus, the Ukrainians have shown them to be useful when fired in a novel fashion from their Magura 7 SAM-equipped air defense drone boats, which have claimed two shootdowns of Russian tactical aircraft in recent weeks over the Black Sea, ala Cold War M48 Chaparral style.
Anyway, the announcement:
Raytheon Co., Tucson, Arizona, is awarded a $1,100,806,209 modification (P00004) to a previously awarded fixed-price incentive (firm-target) contract (N0001924C0032). This modification exercises options for the production and delivery of AIM-9X production Lot 25 requirements as follows: 1,756 AIM-9X-4 Block II All Up Round Tactical Missiles (492 for the Navy, 456 for the Air Force, and 808 for Foreign Military Sales (FMS) customers); 242 AIM-9X-5 Block II+ All Up Round Tactical Missiles for FMS customers; 187 Captive Air Training Missiles (CATM)-9X-4 (40 for the Navy, 62 for the Air Force, and 85 for FMS customers); 13 Special Air Training Missiles (NATM) (five for the Air Force and eight for FMS customers); six Data Air Test Missiles for FMS customers; 30 Multi-Purpose Training Missile for FMS customers; eight Block I Tactical Sectionalization Kits for the Air Force; seven Block I CATM Sectionalization Kits for the Air Force; 33 Block II Tactical Sectionalization Kit (21 for the Navy, eight for the Air Force, and four for FMS customers); 34 Block II CATM Sectionalization Kits (24 for the Navy, six for the Air Force, and four for FMS customers); 31 Block II Tactical Maintenance Kits (30 for the Navy and one for FMS customers); 28 Block II CATM Maintenance Kits (27 for the Air Force and one for FMS customers), as well as various associated spares, containers, and support equipment. Work will be performed in Tucson, Arizona (36.14%); North Logan, Utah (9.96%); Niles, Illinois (7.83%); Keyser, West Virginia (7.65%); Hillsboro, Oregon (4.71%); Midland, Ontario, Canada (3.17%); Heilbronn, Germany (2.58%); Goleta, California (2.5%); Simsbury, Connecticut (2.49%); Anaheim, California (2.39%); Minneapolis, Minnesota (2.10%); Murrieta, California (2.10%); Valencia, California (1.68%); San Diego, California (1.57%); Kalispell, Montana (1.56%); St. Albans, Vermont (1.21%); Anniston, Alabama (1.15%); San Jose, California (1.12%); Cincinnati, Ohio (1.03%); and various other locations within the continental U.S. (7.06%), and is expected to be complete by October 2028. Fiscal 2025 weapons procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $490,708,962; fiscal 2025 missile procurement funds in the amount of $183,651,109; fiscal 2025 operations and maintenance funds in the amount of $2,082,840; fiscal 2025 research, development, test and evaluation (Air Force) funds in the amount of $952,404; fiscal 2025 research, development, test and evaluation funds in the amount of $664,351; fiscal 2024 missile procurement (Air Force) funds in the amount of $55,470,485; fiscal 2024 weapons procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $2,961,405; fiscal 2024 research, development, test and evaluation (Air Force) funds in the amount of $952,404; fiscal 2023 missile procurement (Air Force) funds in the amount of $8,768,269; fiscal 2023 weapons procurement (Navy) funds in the amount of $4,448; and FMS customer funds in the amount of $597,227,867, will be obligated at the time of award, of which $19,623,826 will expire at the end of the current fiscal year. The contract action was not competed. Naval Air Systems Command, Patuxent River, Maryland, is the contracting activity.
Alabama-based Kimber on Friday debuted the Next Generation 1911 series in both 9mm and .45 ACP, and we have one on hand for a closer look.
While in the 1911 biz for generations– my first “nice” 1911 was a Grand Raptor more than 25 years ago– Kimber has made a serious effort to update the design in the past couple of years. We’ve already covered the excellent Kimber 2K11 double stack from the company, and many of the features from that design are appearing in the more traditional Next Gen series. We’ll get into that below.
At launch, the company plans to offer these pistols in four models, all with full-length (Government) sized slides and 5-inch flush-fit deep-crowned stainless steel barrels. They also sport a nice GT match-grade trigger, black walnut grips with a G10 inlay for added texture and a rounded fastback-style heel. External extractors are the norm, as are front and rear slide serrations, ambi safeties, a round commander-style hammer spur, and an optics cut.
Where the differences between the four models lie is in caliber (9mm or 45ACP, shipping with two stainless 9+1 or 7+1 round mags each) and in the finish, with an option for either a two-tone with a Matte KimPro II black slide over a stainless frame, or all-stainless.
Best yet, the MSRP is $999 across the board, allowing for a classic American-made (in a pro-2A state) 1911-series pistol with a much more modern feature set.
The Kimber Next Generation 1911 stainless model in .45 ACP. (All photos: Chris Eger/Guns.com)
The overall length of our review pistol is a very 1911 standard 8.6 inches from the flush-fit muzzle crown to the extended beavertail sweep.
Kimber uses forged slides, frames, and barrels with these guns, which give a standard weight of 36.2 ounces, unloaded.
Taking a look at the inside, the Kimber Next Generation 1911 field strips like standard models, using a GI-style recoil assembly. It was very tight, and Kimber includes a bushing wrench, but we didn’t have to use it. Splitting the difference between the 17-pound recoil spring weight (for more reliability) and the 15-pound weight for smooth shooting/easy recoil, Kimber went with a 16 on the .45ACP. Of note, the 9mm variant uses a 12-pound spring.
Check out the polishing on the feed ramp and the barrel fitment. We found the barrel to have a rock-hard lock-up when in battery with no wiggle or rattle.
External extractors significantly up the reliability of a pistol without the same iffy tensioning problem that internal extractors have. Staccato’s revised C and HD series have external extractors, as does Kimber’s 2K11. Also, note the greatly lowered and flared ejection port in the image below.
Kimber’s GT match trigger is advertised as having a break between 4 and 5 pounds. We found our test gun to break right at 4 pounds.
I get it, the Army is looking to save money everywhere to do more important things like fund new weapon systems that will eventually turn into a boondogle and upgrade military housing to almost habitable levels, but this sucks.
Young Joes need to be able to go to their on-base museum and learn about their heritage and history, coming face to face with the heroes of the past.
Plus, in many cases, the base museum is the only place where new soldiers can take their visiting family members to “show” them what they do. I recently visited the Infantry Museum at Benning on a Sunday morning, and most of those touring the exhibits were young E-1/2/3s walking their parents around with pride. A sense of picking up the torch going back to 1775.
This is a mistake.
From the CMH:
In support of Army transformation and a focus on directing resources toward readiness and lethality, the Center of Military History has begun a consolidation and reduction of Army museums, a process that will continue through Fiscal Year 2029.
The Army Museum Enterprise (AME) will reduce from 41 museum activities at 29 locations to 12 field museums and four training support facilities at 12 locations.
In the current AME, a substantial maintenance backlog and insufficient staffing prevent our museums from reaching their fullest potential as educational and historical resources. These challenges also pose significant risk to our ability to care for the Army’s priceless artifact collection, which is one of the world’s largest.
The future Army Museum Enterprise is designed to best support Soldier training and public education within our available budget and professional staff. The consolidation plan ensures the widest possible access to the highest quality museums within available Army resources.
Specific closure dates and procedures have not been determined. CMH is committed to maintaining communications with affected local communities and commands, and to addressing stakeholder concerns.
As soon as a timeline of closures and consolidations of specific museums is set, we will provide the information.
Bases and facilities where the Army is proposing to keep museums open, according to a draft proposal obtained by Task & Purpose, are:
The U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York
U.S. Army Museum of Hawaii in Honolulu
Fort Gregg Adams, Virginia
Fort Bragg, North Carolina
Fort Cavazos, Texas
Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri
Fort Campbell, Kentucky
Fort Jackson, South Carolina
Fort Benning, Georgia
Fort Novosel, Alabama
Fort Sam Houston, Texas
Fort Sill, Oklahoma
Those set to be closed include museums on the following bases:
The South Dakota-class battleship USS Indiana (BB-58), seen taking water over the bow, while steaming through a typhoon in the Okinawa area, circa 5 June 1945.
Official U.S. Navy photograph, now in the collections of the National Archives. 80-G-342732
The storm was bad enough to claim one of her floatplanes. From her deck log that day:
The “Hoosier Houseboat” earned nine battlestars for her WWII service and entered the Pacific Reserve Fleet’s Bremerton Group in 1946 alongside her sister, Alabama, and decommissioned the following year for mothballs.
While “Big Al” got a ticket home to Mobile for museum ship service in 1960, Indiana instead went to the scrapyard, although lots of her relics are on display in her home state.
Indiana War Memorial in Indianapolis (Photo: Chris Eger)
For better or worse, the third-hand 360-foot oilfield support vessel M/V Aiviq, acquired in December 2024 from an Edison Chouest Offshore subsidiary, was renamed the future USCGC Storis (WAGB 21) and has spent the past six months in a series of shipyard availabilities along the Gulf Coast.
This week, “following modifications to enhance communications and self-defense capabilities,” the country’s newest “polar icebreaker” departed Bollinger’s yard in Escatawpa (formerly VT Halter) on its “maiden voyage to safeguard U.S. sovereign interests in the Arctic and conduct Coast Guard missions.”
Photos courtesy of Edison Chouest Offshore.
While scheduled to be commissioned in Juneau this August, where she will eventually be based once the service has built the necessary infrastructure for her, in the meantime, Storis will be homeported in Seattle with the agency’s other icebreakers. The cutter’s new skipper is the former captain of the USCGC Polar Star (WAGB 10), so at least he is used to working with a mixed bill of goods.
To be clear, Storis will be used as a bridging strategy to “expand U.S. operational presence in the Arctic and support Coast Guard missions.”
At the same time, the service awaits the delivery of the delayed, and much more capable (potentially to include anti-ship missiles) 460-foot, 19,000-ton (launch weight) icebreaking multi-mission Polar Security Cutter class.
If you enjoy my always ad-free Warship Wednesday content, you can support it by buying me a cup of joe at https://buymeacoffee.com/lsozi As Henk says: “Warship Coffee – no sugar, just a pinch of salt!”
Warship Wednesday, June 4, 2025: Tiny Hull, Heart of Oak
“Goliath Wins,” painting by former RN FAA veteran and well-known marine and aviation artist, the late Jim Rae.
Above we see the Tree-class Admiralty type minesweeping trawler, HMT Juniper (T123), as she engages in a one-sided artillery duel with the German heavy cruiser Admiral Hipper in the Norwegian Sea on 8 June 1940, some 85 years ago this week.
The Trees
The British, with thousands of hardy blue water fishing boats and generations of crews along their coast in the 20th Century, were quickly able to mobilize these home-grown assets as sort of a “pirate fleet” with little effort, much akin to how the USCG almost overnight was able to deploy their 2,000-boat so-called Hooligan Navy or Corsair Fleet during WWII.
The concept in the Great War was simple: take a boat, add a deck gun, radio set, and searchlight; crew it largely with experienced trawlermen in uniform led by a reserve officer or two, and then specialize it into either anti-submarine work with listening gear and depth charges or minesweeping with sweep gear, sort said “battle trawlers” into flotillas, and turn them loose.
When 1935’s Italian invasion of Ethiopia, followed by Hitler’s abrogation of the terms of the Treaty of Versailles with the reoccupation of the Rhineland by German troops and rearmament to include U-boats, signaled a new war on the horizon, the Royal Navy dusted off its trawler plan as a quick way to boost coastal forces.
This led to the prototype for the British ASW/minesweeping trawlers of the next decade, with HMT Basset (T68) built by Robb in Leith, being launched before the end of 1935.
Coal-burning with a single boiler and VTE engine good for a humble 12.5 knots, Basset ran 160 feet oal, could float in just 10 feet of seawater, and displaced 521 tons. Armament was a 3″/40 12pdr 12cwt QF Mk I/II/V taken from a WWI-era destroyer and mounted on a “bandstand” on the bow, along with weight and space saved for as many as 30 depth charges and mechanical minesweeping gear.
Basset led to a series of nearly two dozen vessels for the Royal Indian Navy and a few for the Canadians, while the design was tweaked for the follow-on Gem and Tree classes.
The first WWII-era Admiralty standard minesweeping trawler type was the 20-member Tree class, so dubbed as all its members were named after trees. These were just barely larger than the Basset (Dog) class, hitting 545 tons standard (770 full) and running some 164 feet long.
Armament, like Basset, relied on a single old 12-pounder forward, a twin 50-cal Vickers rear (sometimes replaced with a second 12-pounder) a pair of Vickers .303s, two depth charge throwers and two depth charge racks with provision for 30 ash cans, along with the novel new Oropesa Mk II mechanical mine sweep or LL-type magnetic mine sweep.
A trawler’s gun crew manning the 12-pounder on the fo’castle. Photographer LT FA Hudson IWM (A 17176)
A trawler’s crew manning a 12-pounder. Photographer LT FA Davies IWM (A 12317)
Ordered from nine small yards around Britain, all were laid down on the eve of the war, augmented by 67 other trawlers purchased from trade.
HMT Birch, a Tree-class trawler
British Tree class naval trawler HMT Rowan, Pennant No T119 FL18332
British Tree-class naval trawler HMT Walnut, Pennant No T103
British Tree class naval trawler HMT Acacia, Pennant No T02, IWM FL 46
HMT Bay, Tree class Trawler, IWM A 6694
HM Trawler Pine – a “Tree” class minesweeper, she was torpedoed and sunk off Beachy Head by a Kriegsmarine Schnellboot with the loss of 10 of her crew.
HMT Walnut, Tree tree-class trawler
Crews were up to 40 souls, but typically more like 35, relying on a skipper and two junior officers, a couple of ratings from the RN or RNR, and the rest members of the newly stood up Royal Naval Patrol Service (RNPS).
Trained at the “stone frigate” HMS Europa, the commandeered Sparrows Nest Gardens in Lowestoft, Suffolk, the ad-hoc nature of the enterprise soon led to the force being known as “Harry Tate’s Navy” after a popular comedian of the era who had problems getting his car started and soon found it falling apart all around him but carried on with confidence nonetheless. In short, something akin to the “Rodney Dangerfield Navy.”
Meet Juniper
Our subject was the second warship to carry the name in the Royal Navy, with the first being an 8-gun Napoleonic-era Shamrock-class schooner that distinguished herself on Sir Arthur Wellesley’s campaigns in Portugal and Spain.
Ordered along with her future sister, HMT Mangrove from Ferguson Brothers (now Ferguson Marine) in Glasgow, Juniper was laid down as Yard No. 344 in August 1939 while Mangrove, built side-by-side, was No. 345. Their hull numbers would be T123 and T112, characteristically out of sequence, a class trait.
Juniper launched on 15 December 1939, as the Germans were digesting newly conquered western Poland, and commissioned in March 1940, as they prepped to turn West. She was modified while under construction and fitted with a more comprehensive AAA suite: three 20mm Oerlikons in place of the twin .50 cal Vickers.
20mm Oerlikon mounting on a British trawler. LT FA Davies IWM (A 12318)
Juniper’s first (and only) skipper was 42-year-old LCDR (Emergency) Geoffrey Seymour Grenfell, RN. An 18-year-old midshipman of impeccable background during the Great War (grandson of ADM John Pascoe Grenfell, grandnephew of Field Marshal Francis Grenfell, and the nephew of a VC holder killed with the 9th Lancers in 1914) he fought at Jutland on the famous HMS Warspite, a vessel holed 150 times in the sea clash by five German battleships. Leaving active service in 1920 as a lieutenant, after nine years with the colors, he was moved to the Emergency List, where he was made a LCDR in 1928 and remained there until activated in 1939.
Grenfell was a little bit famous at the time, having married the high-profile Countess of Carnarvon in 1938, an American heiress and descendant of the Lee Family of Virginia who had just divorced the 6th Earl of Carnarvon, leaving her son to inherit the title. Of note, the family home was the real Victorian Highclere Castle, the setting of the fictional Downton Abbey. Grenfell and the Countess’s marriage was important enough to be carried across the Atlantic in the NYT’s society pages.
The rest of Juniper’s tiny wardroom was made up of Probationary Temporary (Acting) Sub-Lieutenant Neville L. Smith, RNVR, and Probationary Temporary Lieutenant Ronald Campbell Blair Arnold Daniel, RNVR. Daniel, 40, was an architect in the Richmond practice of Partridge and a proud member of the Petersham Horticultural Society, having just joined the colors in April 1940.
War!
Rushed northward in June 1940 to take part in Operation Alphabet, the Allied evacuation of Norway, on the morning of 8 June, having departed Tromso the day before as the sole escort for the Aberdeen-bound 5,600-ton tanker SS Oil Pioneer, Juniper spotted a large cruiser on the horizon off Harstad.
It turned out to be the 14,000-ton Admiral Hipper, which at the time flew the signals of the British cruiser HMS Southampton.
Hipper off Norway, 1940
Realizing the ruse too late and being too slow to make a getaway, Juniper put the “battle” in battle trawler and made ready for a surface action. Signaling her merchantmen to evade as best they could, she began a cat-and-mouse artillery action with Hipper.
Some reports state that it took 90 minutes. Others are just 15. No matter how long it took to play out, the outcome was certain, and Juniper was smashed below the waves by Hipper’s secondary 4.1-inch SK C/33 battery, the bruiser saving its big 8-inch guns for more worthy prey. Any of Hipper’s four escorting destroyers, Z7 Hermann Schoemann, Z10 Hans Lody, Z15 Erich Steinbrinck, and Z20 Karl Galster, would have been more than a match for our trawler.
An on-board camera crew captured the event.
Shortly after, the nearby KM Gneisenau caught Oil Pioneer and sank her with a combination of gunfire and a torpedo from the destroyer Schoemann, leaving one reported survivor.
The bulk of Juniper’s crew were listed simply as missing or “Missing Presumed Killed” (MPK).
ALEXANDER, Ivor, Ordinary Seaman, LT/JX 179311, MPK
AUSTWICK, Clarence H, Engineman, RNR (PS), LT/X 59952 ES, missing
BARGEWELL, Arthur, Stoker, RNPS, LT/KX 106123, missing
BROWNJOHN, Denis E, Telegraphist, C/WRX 1246, missing
CHAPMAN, Charles, Seaman, RNR (PS), LT/X 20188 A, missing
COOPER, Robert, Ordinary Seaman, RNPS, LT/JX 183134, MPK
DANIEL, Ronald C B A, Py/Ty/Lieutenant, RNVR, MPK
GEORGE, William, Stoker 2c, RNPS, LT/KX 104599, MPK
GRENFELL, Geoffrey S, Lieutenant Commander, MPK
HIND, Wilson K, Leading Seaman, RNR, D/X 10320 B, missing
JILLINGS, Henry A, Seaman, RNPS, LT/JX 177687, missing
MARSHALL, William D, Stoker, RNPS, LT/KX 104048, missing
NEWELL, George W, Ordinary Seaman, RNPS, LT/JX 172789, MPK
PENTON, Thomas S, Ordinary Seaman, RNPS, LT/JX 176379, missing
PERKINS, James K, Seaman, RNPS, LT/JX 177711, missing
PHILLIPS, Peter R S, Ordinary Seaman, RNPS, LT/JX 183136, MPK
SAWKINS, Eric W, Ordinary Signalman, RNVR, P/SDX 1535, missing
SEABROOK, William H, Telegraphist, RNW(W)R, C/WRX 124, missing
SMITH, Neville L, Py/Ty/Act/Sub Lieutenant, RNVR, MPK
SUMMERS, George, Engineman, RNR (PS), LT/X 318 EU, missing
TIMMS, Ernest S, Seaman, RNPS, LT/JX 180470, missing
VENTRY, Vincent, Seaman Cook, RNPS, LT/JX 185635, missing
WEAVER, Edgar A, 2nd Hand, RNPS, LT/KX 181715, missing
Those survivors picked up by the Germans were taken to Trondheim and eventually made their way to the Stalag IID Stargard in Pomerania. One of these survivors, Telegraphist Charles Roy Batchelor (499/X4624), though grievously wounded, survived the war and left a detailed account of his post-Juniper experience. He was repatriated home in October 1943 due to his wounds and would endure a series of skin and bone grafts for another 18 months. He went on to make a life for himself in to the 1980s and had a family, but walked with a limp, carried facial scars, and had difficulty chewing until the very end.
Soon after sending Juniper and Oil Pioneer to the bottom, Hipper found the empty troopship SS Orama (19,840 GRT) and made it a hat-trick.
German destroyer Z10 Hans Lody picking up survivors from British troop transport SS Orama, June 8, 1940
On the same afternoon as Juniper was lost and only a few miles away, the German battleships Gneisenau and Scharnhorst would meet up and sink the carrier HMS Glorious, including her defending destroyers HMS Acasta and Ardent, with the loss of over 1,500 lives. That much larger disaster overshadowed our trawler’s ride to Valhalla.
Epilogue
Despite the heroic charge of Juniper, I cannot find where the vessel or her crew were decorated. British LCDR Gerard Broadmead Roope, skipper of the G-class destroyer, HMS Glowworm, sunk by Hipper under very similar circumstances in April 1940, earned a VC.
The only post-war mention I can find of the good LCDR Grenfell is a notice of the settlement of his estate, published in October 1941.
His wife, the former Countess of Carnarvon, mourned for a decade before taking her third husband in 1950, and passed in 1977.
The Trees had a tough war. Besides Juniper, five of her 19 sisters were lost in action: HMT Almond (T 14), Ash (T 39), Chestnut (T 110), Hickory (T 116), and Pine (T 101).
The British lost an amazing 122minesweeping trawlers during the war.
The Royal Naval Patrol Service numbered some 66,000 men during WWII, manning 6,000 assorted small vessels. At least 14,500 of these “Sparrows” lost their lives, and no less than 2,385 RNPS seamen “have no known grave but the sea.”
Today, the Lowestoft War Memorial Museum at Sparrow’s Nest remembers their sacrifices. Bronze panels at the Museum hold the names of the 2,385 MPK, including those lost on Juniper, recorded on Panels No. 1 and No. 2.
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